Is there a pampered adult child in your family who the parents dote on?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In DH's family, it is his sister. she is 6 years younger than him, attended college close to home (DH went 4 days drive away). MIL and SIL have this terribly co-dependent relationship. SIL says jump and MIL says "how high?" Currently SIL is attempting to hold Christmas Eve dinner hostage to her various whims and MIL is falling for it (me, I'm holding firm to the 5:00 reservation we have!). But SIL is largely incapable of being an adult. She has a nice job, but taking care of her kid? Managing her house? Basic adult things like keeping your car registration current? Nope. Can't do it, calls MIL crying, MIL takes care of it all. MIL loooooooves feeling needed.

In both cases, my brother and SIL are remarkably self-centered people who have spent their 30+ years upon this earth having every obstacle bulldozed out of their way by mothers who have their identity incredibly intertwined with their child.

We have the same sister-in-law! Mine cannot manage her children or her life AT ALL. My MIL complains behind her back but she loves being in control and having a purpose. My SIL bought a house on the same block as MIL and it’s going to get even worse. They already literally break into her house using the garage code and take her groceries for themselves. When I was younger and more naive, I thought “that’s fine, SIL can suck up all the attention and resources, but at least we are off the hook for MIL’s elder care”. I now realize how silly that is, because my SIL isn’t suddenly going to become an un-selfish, competent person. My MIL is super well off, but I’m so afraid that SIL will spend all the money before MIL dies and we will be left holding the bag.

OP of the original post. Yes. So much this. SIL would love if MIL moved closer to her (currently 2+ hours away), and has actually asked MIL to quit her job, sell her house, and move to the same town. "I don't understand why she won't!" Because we recently watch my mom have to shoulder the burden of caring for her step-father as he died and continue to care for my grandmother with dementia, the topic has come up between me and DH. We are dreading the day our parents need care. We know our siblings, despite being supported by parents in various ways well into adulthood, are not going to lift a finger. Because we are the competent, functional adults, it's going to fall on us. And that just sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think parents want to be needed in a perverted way so they punish the independent child and continue to maintain the codependency of the other child

These are parents who have personality disorders. It’s not normal behavior.

[Anonymous]

Doesn't everyone? DH's parents are super co-dependent with his sister (10 years younger than us, single, living on her own), but they literally talk every day, they know everything about one another, and my ILs do literally everything for their 35 year old daughter. Two years ago, they dropped everything and my 70-something ILs helped their 30+ year old daughter move into her new apartment. She's been employed for years, she has a great job, no debt, is very frugal, has tons of money in the bank, she definitely could have afforded movers, but no, she needed mommy and daddy to help her move into her 3rd floor apartment. She really should be ashamed of herself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't everyone? DH's parents are super co-dependent with his sister (10 years younger than us, single, living on her own), but they literally talk every day, they know everything about one another, and my ILs do literally everything for their 35 year old daughter. Two years ago, they dropped everything and my 70-something ILs helped their 30+ year old daughter move into her new apartment. She's been employed for years, she has a great job, no debt, is very frugal, has tons of money in the bank, she definitely could have afforded movers, but no, she needed mommy and daddy to help her move into her 3rd floor apartment. She really should be ashamed of herself.

This doesn’t sound... that bad to me. It is theoretical that the DD can reciprocate and their relationship could just be close. The bad would be if she didn’t work, lived off them, etc.

[Anonymous]

Sometimes parents are worried about the ne’er do well adult children. They know the competent ones will be just fine on their own. They end up overcompensating and coddling the less competent/stable child.